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Thursday, 30 March 2017

THE AIR ATTACK WARNING SOUNDS LIKE

[Cover for "Protect and Survive" - 2016 reissue by Imperial War Museum]

I count myself lucky that, while remaining vigilant, I live
in a place and time that is relatively free of danger. However, seeing the
pink, strikes and flared trousers in old videos or pictures of the late 1970s,
you forget that the average middle-aged couple of the time would have grown up
during the Second World War, then live through the ongoing Cold War between the
USSR and the West, under the very small, but still possible, threat of a
nuclear attack.

You would hope there was plan in place if, or when,
something happened - there was, but it had not been published. Previous examples
of “civil defence” leaflets date back to 1938, when people needed advice on
protecting their homes against air raids, but apart from some public
information films in the early 1960s, nothing more was heard. Eventually, word
got out that the Home Office had a booklet, already sent to official bodies,
titled “Protect and Survive,” to be issued to homes if an immediate threat of
attack appeared. Public interest led the Government to publish it for the
general public in May 1980, costing 50 pence.

Reading in 2017, the booklet itself is hilarious, coming
across as a way to help people busy themselves, distracting them from almost
certain death. There are tips on where to locate your fallout shelter, how to
build it, what provisions to keep there, and the siren warnings to listen out
for. It is the grim side of the Blitz spirit on which we pride ourselves, but carrying
on through anything and everything is the game the book requires you to play. I
wish I knew how many people bought it on its original release, and what they
made of the illustrations: drawing instructions makes them more functional, but
I imagine photographs of real people readying themselves may make a hypothetical
situation much too real.

Discredited on arrival by anti-nuclear campaigns, “Protect
and Survive” was criticised for making nuclear war look like something that
could be survived, leading to a second booklet, “Civil Defence: Why We Need It”
(1981), explaining why a plan was even needed, likening the keeping safe of the
country to putting on your seatbelt in your car.

Images from “Protect and Survive,” and the accompanying set
of public information films, also originally meant to be classified, were
co-opted in the cultural fight against nuclear arms, including “Threads,” the
bleak TV drama depicting a Britain post-attack. Most effectively, the authoritarian
voice of Patrick Allen, as used in the information films, was peppered through Frankie
Goes to Hollywood’s song “Two Tribes,” with Allen re-reading the original words
to ironic effect.

To me, this still feels like history, only just overlapping with
my own lifetime, with debates over the UK’s nuclear deterrent submarines a
small reminder of the Pandora’s Box that even the idea of nuclear weapons has
proved to be. However, the United States Department of Homeland Security’s
website, www.ready.gov, still advises that,
despite the diminished thread since the end of the Cold War: “the possibility
remains that a terrorist could obtain access to a nuclear weapon. Called
improvised nuclear devices (IND), these are generally smaller, less powerful
weapons than we traditionally envision.” Oh great, thanks for that.